From the retail sales release, nominal retail sales in October constant vs. +0.1% m/m Bloomberg consensus. In real terms, they’re down.
Figure 1: Real retail sales deflated by chained CPI (blue), by CPI-all (tan), real consumption (green), all in logs 2025M01=0 . October consumption is predicted using a first differences regression of consumption on real retail sales, 2025M01-25M09. Source: Census, BEA, BLS, and author’s calculations.
Leave out vehicles and gasoline and the picture is somewhat better:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1OUMI
The slow pace of vehicle sales may reflect weaker demand, limited supply, or both. As to supply, the inventory/sales ratio for domestic autos is still pretty tight, though improved from earlier in the Covid era:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1OUMr
Still, not a pretty retail scene.
So, the felon-in-chief has ordered up bonuses for those in the military. He announced the payments during a speech which was meant to address cost-of-living problems, and by extension, his weak support among the public. That’s checks of $1,776 to each of about 1 million voting-age people, so it makes sense. It also makes sense that he’d attempt to build support among the armed forces should he want to attempt another coup. Or if not a coup, then to suppress voting in Democratic voter strongholds.
All for the low, low price of a couple of billion dollars of taxpayer money. A bargain if it works.